Category: appearances

Fellow Battery member, podcaster and top-notch interior designer Jeff Schlarb called me out of the blue and invited me in for an interview on his show. I’m very grateful for unexpected invitations like this, and I admire what Jeff is doing a lot.

Jeff sees his podcast as ‘an opportunity to have interesting conversations,’ and it certainly was. Thanks for the invitation, Jeff. It takes courage to open your door so widely — well done. I hope you all enjoy our conversation, and do check out the other episodes of his show, including SF supervisor Scott Wiener, chef Tyler Florence, choreographer Alonzo King, and restauranteur Anna Weinberg, among many others!

In October 2017 I hosted a panel discussion at the Battery with two of my favorite multi-sport athletes. We talked about what it means to be an athlete, creativity and sport, and began a conversation about bringing skills from one sport to another.

Daniela Moroz, two-time world-champion kiteboard racer, winner of the Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year in 2015 at age 15.

Soon after we released the SurfinSemFim kitesurfing documentary about long distance kiting in Brazil, I was interviewed on the fantastic Here Be Dragons kitesurfing podcast. On his show, Bjoern digs up the details on some of the most interesting kite destinations around the world, and I’ve learned a lot listening to his episodes about South Africa and Chile, just to name a couple of them.

He asked me to be on the show to talk about my long-distancekitesurfing experiences in Brazil with Surfin Sem Fim. We did a trans-Atlantic simul-cast and worked our way through the 600km itinerary that we captured in the film, talking about the landscape, the spots, the kiting, and the immersive experience of traveling by kite day-after-day down the coast of Brazil.

Soon after we released the SurfinSemFim kitesurfing documentary about long distance kiting in Brazil, I was interviewed on Adventure Sports Podcast, a unique show that focuses on all sorts of adventure sports. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences and spread the word about adventure kiting!

Starting with the beginner questions about what kitesurfing is and how it works, at about 44:30 we move on to talk about my longdistance kitesurfing experience in Brazil and also about the deep connection between athletics and intuition and how being active in nature – especially over the course of a long athletic journey – can be a powerful way to train your intuition.

Early last year my friend Marco mentioned an idea, a project that he was working on. Not ‘just an idea’ as we often say but an awesome idea, and I said yes!, let’s do it, I would love to be part of it if it happens.

I went into training mode – some flying, running, swimming in the Bay and kiting in Cape Town, the Philippines, Micronesia, Baja, and California – and a few months later I found myself in Taiba, Brazil getting ready to kite 600km down the coast with a small film crew to capture the experience.

This sort of athletic journey is my favorite way to travel, and it was an incredible opportunity and a privilege to be one of the six professional athletes that formed the team. I was the only American and the only non-Brazilian on the team, which made for an additional challenge on top of the long days on the water. The other riders were Guilly Brandão, Andre Cintra, Marco Dalpozzo, Andre Penna, and Marcela Witt — a diverse crew of world-class riders, all game for some long distance adventure!

After nearly a year of post-production the resulting film was released in Brazil by Canal OFF and I am now able to share it here with you.

An intense athletic journey is one of the best ways to bring out the connection between athletics and intuition, and making this film was a transformative experience for me. Not only was this my first pro athlete gig but I was also working in a new foreign language (Portuguese). At first it was hard to find my footing but once I got my board under my feet and my kite in the air I felt right at home. I’m very proud of the result and very happy that the film captures the feeling of this incredible part of the world, and of the long distance experience.

In January 2017 I led a workshop at The Battery entitled “Upgrade your decision-making”. My goal was to share some of my thinking about Athletics and Intuition in the form of a “Decide Nothing toolkit” – a few simple techniques that I use to help me stay in flow and make decisions intuitively. Some of the techniques that I shared are

Move without hesitation

See over the mountain

Shake hands with monuments

Check your messages

Welcome the unfamiliar

Roll the dice

This workshop was continuation of some events that I hosted in 2016 at the Battery and part of a series that I will be leading through the rest of 2017 on Athletics and Intuition.

I’ve had several days lately that have blown my mind, and yesterday was one of them.

I got up at 6am and led an event as part of EO SF’s 25th Anniversary where I took 20 entrepreneurs from all over the world (not a dirty word btw, entrepreneur means business owner not “tech douche”) out in SF bay and treated them to a swim/float under the Golden Gate on a massive 4 knot flood tide. We jumped in by the red nun buoy outside the south tower and were swept in through the gate right next to the base of the tower in a roaring rip of whitewater, and then spent 20 minutes or so being spun around by upwellings and whirlpools in the middle of the bay.

Golden Gate swim group

This event was the culmination of many years of event production and experience creation, as well as the unique combination of my perspective as an SF native, a salt water hog and an EO member leader. I was so stoked to share my vision and love for the bay and the Bridge and incredibly gratified to see how others GOT IT in such a big way. We had an incredible time and definitely blew some minds.

EO SF Golden Gate swim

Back on shore I raced back to my place, had a quick shower, changed and then to the Legion of Honor for EO SF’s 25th Anniversary celebration. I had to have a quadruple espresso to compensate for the change in venue. Fantastic event and I’m proud to be a member of EO and former chapter President of EO San Francisco. So cool to see so many fellow independent thinkers making their unique way through the world.